Happy "Me" Day to You

I’m super excited to have been invited to join a blog group alongside three talented bloggers.  Each week, one of us chooses a topic and we all post a blog entry on that topic, usually on Thursdays.  

Here are the links to the other fabulous blogs:

Merryland Girl

Froggie

Moma Rock

This week’s topic comes from Merryland Girl, who asked:  Tell us what your ideal “Me Day” would be like.  Two stipulations apply:  1. You have no responsibilities to anyone today, meaning you don't have to work, be in communication with anyone, do errands/ chores, etc.  2.  You have an unlimited amount of money that you can spend.

Here’s my take:

                  In 1982, a terrible song called I’ve Never Been to Me flooded the American airwaves.  The song hit Number 3 on the charts even though it had absolutely no redeeming musical value whatsoever (other than using the word “whore” as a verb).  It was sung by a one-hit wonder who looked remarkably like Jennifer Beales and who sported a single name:  Charlene.  Charlene’s one hit was awful:  one hundred percent pure campy pop fluff. 

                  I, of course, loved it. 

                  Many a Saturday afternoon, I skated around the Axle Roller Rink as the song blared from the scratchy speakers, placed there by the middle-aged woman who worked as a disc jockey at the rink.  I bought the 45 and played it at home, the dramatic tones filling my bedroom.  I concentrated on the grown-up lyrics, willing them to matter to me all the while realizing they held absolutely no meaning in my then fourteen-year-old life.  Hey, lady, I’ve been to paradise, but I’ve never been to me.  What the hell does that even mean?

                  Fast forward a few (dozen) years and . . . I kind of get it.

                  It’s still a terrible song, but now, in the throes of what I’m assuming (read:  “hoping”) is the tail end of a mid-life crisis, I find myself wondering whether I’ve actually ever “been to me.”  (Yep, still sounds really cheesy . . . and oddly a little dirty.)  So, as I ponder how I’d spend my dream “me” day, I find myself thinking less about what I would do or where I would go and more about who, exactly, I am. 

                  I wear my labels.  I know I’m a mother and daughter and wife and attorney and Chicagoan (more specifically, a North Sider), and a Cubs fan.  Those words accurately describe my place in certain subgroups.  But do they describe me as a person?  I can also offer certain characteristics about myself, a handful of personality quirks and traits that I can easily identify – and that I embrace.  I am not a morning person.  I prefer sugary to savory, chocolate cake to lobster, peanut butter M&Ms to almost anything.  I like hair band rock and most kinds of rap but dislike opera and folk music.  I become annoyed – greatly annoyed – when someone mangles grammar.  I love to read, hate to gamble, am indifferent about religion.  I’m a junker at heart, and I love to spend hours at thrift stores and flea markets.  I enjoy a good road trip to just about anywhere, really, just so long as there’s music on the radio and a bag of Twizzlers on the dashboard. 

                  I sound fabulous, don’t I?  A real walk in the park.

                  But it’s not all sunshine and roses here in this place I call “me.”  I walk around with my fair share of stuff, idiosyncrasies wrapped mostly in the neurotic sheen of insecurity.  On my dream “me” day, I would shake off these weights for the entire day.  For example, I’m wired to be a bit anxious.  I can brood with the best of them.  On my “me” day, I would not worry.  At all.  About anything.  I would turn off my law school-trained mind to stop globally thinking about every possible scenario for every possible problem.  Click!  Off.  I would also not wonder, even once, if I look fat, or if I am fat.  Or whether the wrinkles around my eyes have become more pronounced, despite the globs of moisturizer I cake on each day and night.  Or whether my roots are showing, or my hairstyle is out of date.  I wouldn’t care at all about what other people think of me.  I wouldn't wonder whether I should try to be more like that person or less like that other.  I wouldn’t silently question my effectiveness as a mother or as a wife or as a friend.  No, on my “me” day, I’d switch the always-running soundtrack in my head from the all-critical-all-the-time station to a non-stop, twenty-four-hour Bon Jovi marathon.  That would be my ideal “me” day:  the day I really embraced, accepted, and enjoyed being myself – wrinkles and all.

                  One thing I wouldn’t change is the fact that I’m kind lucky in that I don’t really feel the need to invent a dream “me” day, no matter how fun the exercise sounds (and it really does sound like fun).  Like everyone else, I have ways I like to spend my time and money, things I like to do and places I like to go.  And of course I’d love an entire to day to do one or more of these things, with an unlimited budget to boot.  But I’m lucky enough to be able to do most of these things during the course of any given week.  I read and write almost every day.  I visit thrift stores and junk shops fairly regularly.  Every few months, I take a day to myself and hit the flea market in Kane County, and other months, I go to the hair salon for a haircut, some highlights, and a little talk therapy.  I’ve even managed to travel – alone – a few times this year for writing workshops in St. Louis and Saugatuck, Michigan.  I don’t want for much that I don’t have.  Except, it seems, some peace of mind.  An internal happy place.  My own piece of paradise.

                  As Charlene sings in that awful, awful song, Hey, you know what paradise is?  It’s a lie.  A fantasy we create about people and places as we’d like them to be.  People tend to think of paradise as a place outside of themselves – a mecca like Hawaii, or Fiji, or a boat ride along the Amalfi Coast.  And all of those places do, indeed, sound wonderful.  But what good is walking around Maui feeling anxious, or strolling Capri worried about how your ass looks in your bathing suit? 

                  Maybe Charlene had it right.  Maybe paradise doesn’t really exist . . . on the outside.  Maybe it comes from inside, from silencing that voice that calls out flaws and failures, from accepting ourselves as we are – however that may be.  I haven’t been to that place, but I keep trying to find the way.  And if I do, I will declare that day the best “me” day ever.  And I will celebrate by eating peanut butter M&Ms while conjugating the verb “to whore.”  I think I owe Charlene at least that much.  

(Bonus content: Charlene's video!)